The World and the University 



stood gazing in a circle around my strange 

 hickory belongings. I kept outside of the circle 

 to avoid being seen, and had the advantage of 

 hearing the remarks without being embar- 

 rassed. Almost every one as he came up would 

 say, "What's that? What's it for? Who made 

 it?" The landlord would answer them all alike, 

 "Why, a young man that lives out in the coun- 

 try somewhere made it, and he says it's a thing 

 for keeping time, getting up in the morning, 

 and something that I did n't understand. I 

 don't know what he meant." "Oh, no!" one of 

 the crowd would say, "that can't be. It's for 

 something else something mysterious. Mark 

 my words, you'll see all about it in the news- 

 papers some of these days." A curious little 

 fellow came running up the street, joined the 

 crowd, stood on tiptoe to get sight of the won- 

 der, quickly made up his mind, and shouted in 

 crisp, confident, cock-crowing style, "I know 

 what that contraption's for. It's a machine for 

 taking the bones out of fish." 

 , This was in the time of the great popular 

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